Unhide your folders and files hidden by the virus.
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Now you see your files, now you don’t?
You installed or updated your antivirus, and your files just disappeared. Oh my goodness!
You are now in a panic. It seems that you lost all your precious data, your report (with deadlines), presentations, list of clients and more. You blamed your antivirus and yourself. What can you do?
First, don’t blame yourself, it is the right thing you should do. Having an antivirus and keep it updated is wise. It just happen you installed or updated it after the virus is already infecting your files.
Second, don’t blame your antivirus, it isn’t the reason, why your files are gone. It is the virus that hides it, and replaced it (to make it unnoticed the virus resembles your files). However, your antivirus is smart enough, detects the virus and deleted it.
How to recover your files?
Recommended reading:
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Now that is your problem, but I will help you find a solution.
Step 1
- Go to my documents, organize, folder and search options and click the view tab.
- Under the Hidden files and folders, select the show hidden files, folders and drives.
- Uncheck the “hide extensions for known files” and “hide protected operating system files”.
Now you can see your hidden files in semi transparent and as you can see the extensions of your files are now visible .docx, .pptx, .txt and so on.
- Right click your hidden folder (it’s semi transparent) click properties.
- Under the general tab, uncheck the hidden. In some cases this solves the hidden files problem but most of the time this doesn’t help. If you solved your problem, good for you, if not don’t worry let’s proceed to the next step.
Step 2
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Just copy the code below (start from the bottom to completely copy the code) and paste it in notepad, save it as folder.vbs (change the .txt extension into .vbs) . Then paste it inside your HDD, SD card or USB drive from where your files were hidden and run it.
Don’t forget to change the “d:” in cDrive with your current drive letter.
‘ Change d: to the drive letter where you want the change will happen.
cDrive = “d:”Set FSO = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
ShowSubfolders FSO.GetFolder(cDrive)
WScript.Echo “Done with fix.”Sub ShowSubFolders(Folder)
str = “”
For Each Subfolder in Folder.SubFolders
str = str & ” ” & Subfolder.Path
subFolder.Attributes = 0
ShowSubFolders Subfolder
Next
End Sub
You should see all your folders now. How about my image of precious moments, word documents and other files? Please take note that the above code is created to unhide folders alone the files outside your folders isn’t included. To unhide your files outside your folders let’s jump to the next step.
Step 3
- Click start, run, type cmd.
- Type your drive letter with colon Ex. e:, press enter.
- Then type
(without quotes)
Congratulations, you just retrieve your files and folders. If you have any better idea on how to unhide files and folders hidden by virus. Please share it with is, by commenting below. It will be highly appreciated.
Thando says
April 7, 2016 at 10:31 am
Thank you very much, I was just about to give up and format everything stored in my drive
I.C Tiempo says
Hi Thando, you are very much welcome! It’s good to hear that you are able to unhide your files which was hidden by virus after following this guide.
Md Aktar Hossain says
Excellent assistance. Thanks and best wishes.
I.C Tiempo says
Hello MD Aktar,
Thank you for the commendation. I am happy to hear that this post helped you solved your hidden files issue.
Zarko BrankovicZarko Brankovic says
Wow thanks a LOT 😀
I.C Tiempo says
Hello Zarko, I am happy to know that this guide on how to unhide files and folders hidden by virus, helped you solved your problem.
A. RahimAbdul Rahim says
my file & folder semi appear but folder.vbs didn’t run , show error :
Script: H:\folder.vbs
Line: 19
Char: 16
Error: Syntax error
Code: 800A03EA
Source: Microsoft VBScirpt compilation error
Plz guid me …
I.C Tiempo says
Hello Rahim, please try the solutions here: How to remove shortcut virus permanently.
Oscar says
Nice hacks! helped me today!
Thanks so much!
I.C Tiempo says
Hi Oscar, you are always welcome. I am happy to know that this post (how to unhide files or folders hidden by virus) somehow, helped you.
Arijit Halder says
Hi
The description is quite good and even a non-expert can follow your aforesaid guide. But there is no way I found to solve the problem permanently. Can you suggest any way for permanently remove or stop the creation of shortcut virus on flash drive?
Anyway, it’s really a good one.
I.C Tiempo says
Hello Arijit, thank you for the compliments. Please follow the guide here: How to remove, stop, prevent shortcut virus permanently?